Multi-Domain Operations: Closing the Eighteenth Capability Gap

After emerging from decades of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, the Army identified seventeen capability gaps in its conventional warfighting capacity. Certainly, the doctrine and policies associated with COIN are not the same as those that are necessary to compete, deter, and, if deterrence fails, prevail in large scale armed conflict. Our Army has done much to close the seventeen capability gaps, including establishing Army Futures Command (AFC) in 2018, conducting modernization efforts such as the Army’s Project Convergence, and approving the concept of multi-domain operations (MDO) as doctrine.

This post identifies evolutions in legal support to operations that will complement the Army’s efforts to close capabilities gaps in MDO.

Multi-Domain Operations Doctrine

The Army conducts MDO through all domains and dimensions of the operational environment. Domains are physically defined portions of an operational environment requiring a unique set of warfighting capabilities and skills. Dimensions consist of each domain’s physical, information, and human aspects.

In conflict, MDO describe the employment of joint (multi-service) and Army capabilities to create and exploit relative advantages that achieve objectives, defeat enemy forces, and consolidate gains on behalf of joint force commanders. During conflict, MDO are how Army forces close with and destroy the enemy, defeat enemy formations, seize critical terrain, and control populations and resources to deliver sustainable political outcomes. However, MDO are not glass to be broken only in times of conflict. The Army is in a persistent state of competition. Below the threshold of armed conflict, Army forces accrue advantages and demonstrate readiness for conflict using MDO, deterring adversaries while assuring allies and partners.

Legal Aspects of Multi-Domain Operations

The Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps must take on an MDO mindset and do its part to assist the Army’s effort to close its conventional warfighting capability gaps. Specifically, the Corps must facilitate the Army bridging and then closing what Lieutenant General Pede and Colonel Pete Hayden coined the “eighteenth capability gap.”

Initially, the eighteenth capability gap was the result of experiential and policy spillover, in which commanders and judge advocates (JAs) inadvertently imported policy or viewed future warfighting doctrine and policy through the lens of their prior experiences. As the Army shifted focus back to training for large scale combat operations (LSCO), combat training center rotations and warfighter exercises observed some commanders and JAs applying overly prescriptive limitations typical of COIN, or hesitancy to act. Conversely, an opposite and unintended consequence has recently emerged. Some leaders are overcorrecting, conflating the idea of less restrictive operational policies in LSCO with proper application of the law of armed conflict (LOAC).

Certainly war is wretched, but it remains imperative that we continue to adhere to American ideals with respect to LOAC, the rule of law, and humanity. No matter the conduct of our adversaries, we must maintain the legal and the moral high ground by ensuring that we lawfully target military objectives and take feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects. Successfully bridging and then closing the eighteenth gap can only be accomplished through strict adherence to LOAC.

Recently, Lieutenant General Stuart W. Risch, The Judge Advocate General of the Army, and I wrote an article in The Army Lawyer titled, “Multi-Domain Operations Judge Advocate Legal Services’ Role in MDO and Bridging the Eighteenth Capability Gap.” The complete article frames the operational environment, provides an azimuth, and speaks to the role of the Army JAG Corps in MDO. Specifically, the complete article addresses the training and education Judge Advocates should expect and seek. The article also emphasizes the need to establish a breadth of competent operational law attorneys and a bench of national security law experts.

Equally important, the full article reminds readers that LOAC is a commander’s responsibility. Commanders must ensure that their units are properly trained at echelon on LOAC well before conflict ensues. In the next fight, JAs may not be physically present with target decision authorities. Therefore, purposeful LOAC training at home station and during exercises is essential to mitigate misconceptions arising from policy and experiential spillover from recent conflicts of a wholly different character. It is also essential to guard against overcorrection. Once conflict ensues, commanders and legal practitioners must already be steeped in LOAC and appropriately informed of applicable regulations, policy, and doctrine governing the conflict.

Specifically, the article explores the impact of command post survivability and the concept of distributed command posts. In such an environment, commanders may lack in-person access to their command staff’s full complement during the conflict, including their Judge Advocate. No doubt, the physical absence of a JA will come with some consternation; the role of the operational lawyer since the Vietnam War has evolved to the point of JAs being an essential in-person part of the target decision and target engagement process. However, this best practice evolved through conflicts that look markedly different from the threat faced today, and our article posits that it is not required by law. The stark reality of the next fight brings to bear the importance of education, training, and command ownership of LOAC well before the conduct of hostilities.

Finally, we discuss the importance of expert National Security lawyers throughout competition continuum activities. Specifically, this is not a “break glass” when hostilities commence scenario. The Army JAG Corps must have an MDO mindset and be prepared to advise the Army for the future, across the conflict continuum through all domains and dimensions. MDO attorneys must be prepared to advise both conventional units on new capabilities and authorities that at their level and units specifically tailored to conduct MDO: Multi-Domain Task Forces.

Concluding Thoughts

Learning lessons from past experiences and preparing for the potential of LSCO with a peer adversary are not mutually exclusive. That is, neither MDO doctrine, nor this post, advocate for Army leaders to disregard their experiences and lessons learned from their two decades of conducting COIN, and other operations. No doubt, low intensity conflicts, terrorism, and coercive asymmetric activities are not a thing of the past, and certainly remain a threat to our national security.

Our military’s role in countering these threats is, as it should, policy laden and legally constrained. However, Army leaders, commanders, and Judge Advocates, must be able navigate the complexities of operating in our current strategic environment, and be astutely adaptive in preparing and training for the potential of LSCO. It is imperative that our commanders and Judge Advocates fully comprehend and guard against the misapplication of the policy and legal frameworks within which they operate, now and in the future.

***

Photo credit: U.S. Army, Davide Dalla Massara